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Presentation of portrait of Governor Benjamin Smith to the state of North Carolina, in the hall of the House of Representatives, at Raleigh, November 15, 1911, by the North Carolina Society of the Sons of the Revolution

#obernor
^Benjamin ^mitf)
ADDRESS BY COLLIER COBB
November 15, 1911
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT
OF
To the State of North Carolina
Hall of the House of Representatives, at Raleigh
November 15, 1911
North Carolina Society of the Sons
of the Revolution
Address by
COLLIER <;::oBB
Professor of Geology in the University of North Carolina,
a Member of the Society
<;^%.^^
-5^*^
OFFICERS
General Society of the Sons of the Revolution
April, 1911—April. 1914
GENERAL PRESIDENT,
Hon. EDMUND WETMORE,
34 Pine Street, New York City.
GENERAL VICE-PRESIDENT,
JAMES MORTIMER MONTGOMERY,
102 Front Street, New York City.
SECOND GENERAL VICE-PRESIDENT,
Hon. JOHN WINGATE WEEKS,
60 Congress Street, Boston, Mass.
GENERAL SECRETARY,
Professor WILLIAM LIBBEY,
Princeton, N. J.
ASSISTANT GENERAL SECRETARY,
W. HALL HARRIS, Jr.,
216 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, Md.
GENERAL TREASURER,
RICHARD McCALL CADWALADER,
133 South 12th Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
ASSISTANT GENERAL TREASURER,
HENRY CADLE,
Bethany, Mo.
GENERAL REGISTRAR,
Hon. GEORGE E. POMEROY,
Toledo, O.
GENERAL HISTORIAN,
MARSHALL DeLANCEY HAYWOOD,
Raleigh, N. C.
GENERAL CHAPLAIN,
The Reverend RANDOLPH HARRISON McKIM, D.D.,
Washington, D. C.
J
i
^^ OFFICERS
>^ OF THE
North Carolina Society of the Sons of the Revolution
November, 1911—November. 1912
PRESIDENT,
Hon. J. BRYAN GRIMES,
Raleigh.
VICE-PRESIDENT,
DANIEL HARVEY HILL, LL.D.,
West Raleigh.
SECRETARY,
MARSHALL DeLANCEY HAYWOOD,
Raleigh.
REGISTRAR,
WILLIAM ENDS STONE,
Raleigh.
TREASURER,
WILLIAM WATKINS ROBARDS,
Raleigh.
CHAPLAIN,
The Rev. ROBERT BRENT DRANE, D.D.,
Edenton.
BOARD OF MANAGERS:
The Officers, ex officio,
AND
Alexander Boyd Andrews, Jr., Chairman.
Carle Augustus Woodruff. U.S.A. Walter Wellington Watt.
Collier Cobb. James Ozborn Carr.
Charles Earl Johnson. Willis Grandy Peace, U.S.A.
Thomas Maslin. Charles Lee Smith.
PROGRAMME OF PUBLIC EXERCISES
November 15, 1911
Meeting Called to Okdee: By Hon, J. Bryan Grimes,
President of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution.
Peayer : By the Rev. Robert Brent Drane, D.D., of Eden-ton,
Chaplain of the Society.
Intkoduction of the Orator: By President Grimes.
Address : The Career of Governor Benjamin Smith, by
Prof. Collier Cobb, of the University of North Carolina,
a member of the Society.
Acceptance of the Portrait: By His Excellency, Wil-liam
W. Kitchin, Governor of North Carolina.
Benediction : By The Rev. Dr. Drane.
ADDRESS
Addressing Governor Kitchin, Professor Cobb said:
May it Please Your Excellency
:
On behalf of the North Carolina Society of the Sons of
the Kevolution, I present through you to the State of North
Carolina the portrait of Benjamin Smith, patriot, legislator,
soldier, statesman, and philanthropist; builder of highways
and of fortifications ; conservationist and drainer of sw^amps
;
opener of vs^aterways ; believer in education for every child
within the State, and the first benefactor of the University;
Grand Master of Masons ; Governor of North Carolina one
hundred years before his time, and dreamer of dreams which
you, sir, now help to make come true.
LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF BENJAMIN SMITH.
Benjamin Smith's education began more than a hundred
years before he was born, for he came of a race of men who
did things. He was descended from Sir John Yeamans,
from old King Roger Moore, and his grandmother, Lady
Sabina Sraith, was the daughter of Thomas Smith, second
Landgrave of his name in South Carolina. The father of
our present subject was Colonel Thomas Smith, of South
Carolina. So far as is known no relationship existed be-tween
him and his wife, whose name (as just stated) was
also Smith. Thomas Smith, the first Landgrave, had seen
rice cultivated in Madagascar; and one day, in 1696, when a
sea captain, an old friend of his, sailed into Charleston Har-bor
from Madagascar, Thomas Smith got from him a bag of
rice seed. This was carefully sown in a wet place in Smith's
garden in Charleston. It grew, and the two Carolinas were
changed into a land of great rice plantations. His great-grandson,
Benjamin Smith, was later owner of the best rice
plantation in North Carolina, a portion of the original grant
to Landgrave Smith, who tried to establish settlements on the
Cape Fear River in 1690. Also to be counted among his
close kindred were the Bees and Grimkes, of South Carolina,
and the Rhetts, who changed their name from Smith to that
of their grandmother, Catherine Ehett, whose family in
South Carolina had become extinct. Benjamin Smith
thus came of a breed possessing ability, means, and position.
The William Smith who introduced the culture of cotton
into Virginia in 1621 is said to have been of the same stock.
While the public acts and many details of the private life
of Benjamin Smith may be gathered from the records of his
time, both State and N"ational, and from the rather volumi-nous
correspondence of his distinguished contemporaries, the
date of his birth and the manner and place of his burial have
frequently been brought into question. The weight of author-ity
favors January 10, 1756, as his birthday, and Jan-uary
10, 1826, his seventieth birthday, as the date of his
death. Still there are those who contend that he was born
in 1750, and that he died on the 10th of February, 1829.
But a contemporary newspaper, the Raleigh Register, of
February 14, 1826, has a notice of his death as having oc-curred
recently at Smithville.
We know nothing, however, concerning his childhood and
youth, but he must have received careful training, for we
are told that, "While still young, just twenty-one years of
age, he served as aide-de-camp of General Washington in the
dangerous but masterly retreat from Long Island after the
defeat of the American Army in August, 1776. He behaved
with conspicuous gallantry in the brilliant action in which
Moultrie, in 1779, drove the British from Port Royal
Island, and checked for a time the invasion of South Caro-lina.
A Charleston paper says: ^He gave on many occa-sions
such various proofs of activity and distinguished
bravery as to merit the approbation of his impartial coun-try.'
" Yet during the siege of Charleston, in 1780, a blun-der
of Smith's brought about the premature surrender of the
city on the 12th of May. "Mr. Smith sent a letter to his
wife by Mr. Rutlege, who was taking to the Governor a com-munication
that had been confided to him orally, with the
strictest injunction that no written communication be taken
from the garrison. A letter addressed by a friend to his
wife under assurance that it was only a family letter, Mr.
Rutledge unwarily considered it no violation of his instruc-tions.
He was captured soon after he left the town and
printed copies of the letter were next day thrown into the
garrison in unloaded bombshells, and most unaccountably,
through a secret agency, dispersed through all parts of the
town in printed handbills. The letter plainly told that the
garrison must soon surrender, that their provisions were
expended, and Lincoln only prevented from capitulating by
a point of etiquette. From this time hope deserted the gar-rison,
while the reanimated efforts of the enemy showed their
zeal revived." Lincoln surrendered the fort, and Charleston,
with its stores, its advantages, and the army that defended it,
fell into the hands of the British commander. Smith prob-ably
hastened the surrender just a little, but he did not cause
it; for historians are generally agreed that Lincoln should
have fled and saved his army soon after Clinton began en-girdling
the city about the 1st of April, and before the British
fleet a week later ran by Fort Moultrie and entered the
harbor.
In 1Y83 we find Benjamin Smith in the General Assembly
of ISTorth Carolina, representing Brunswick County in the
Senate. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention
of 1788, that declined to accept the Federal Constitution,
and in that body did all in his power to secure its adoption,
since he was an ardent Federalist. He was a member of
the convention that adopted the Constitution in 1789, and
was on the committee that prepared the amendments which
I^orth Carolina proposed to the Constitution of the United
States. He had some support for the Senatorship in 1789,
but Benjamin Hawkins was elected. This Legislature of
1789 chartered the University of ISTorth Carolina, and Smith
8
was named among the most eminent men of the State com-posing
the first board of trustees. At the first meeting of
the board, on the 18th of December, 1789, Colonel Smith
offered to the University warrants for 20,000 acres of land
in Tennessee that he had received as pay for his distinguished
services in the Revolution, and he handed over the warrants
at the second meeting of the board in 1790. He remained a
trustee of the University until 1824, and took great pride in
presiding over the meetings of the board during his term as
Governor of the State.
The warrants Colonel Smith gave were for land located
in Obion County, in the extreme northwest part of Tennes-see.
By the Treaty of Hopewell in 1795 the United States
ceded this territory to the Chickasaw Indians. In 1810 the
most terrific earthquake that has ever visited the interior of
our country turned portions of this region into lakelets, and
a large part of the University's tract is now occupied by
Reelfoot Lake, the scene of the night-rider raid of a few
years ago. It was not until twenty-five years afterward
that a sale was effected, realizing $14,000 for the University.
Smith Hall, built for a library half a century after the gift
of the land warrants and today occupied by the Law School,
the most attractive building on the campus, commemorates
the munificence of Colonel Smith.
In 1791 Smith again became a member of the Assembly,
and except for the three years, 1801, 1802 and 1803, he con-tinued
in the State Senate until his election as Governor in
the fall of 1810, and he was again in the Senate in 1816.
He was Speaker of the Senate from 1795 to 1799. In 1800
he was defeated for the Speakership by Joseph Riddick, and
in the next election he was defeated for the Senatorship by
William Wingate, a Jeffersonian Democrat. In that day
personal conflicts growing out of political differences were
by no means unusual, and there is a tradition of a duel that
Smith fought with Thomas Leonard, a political opponent,
in which the General was seriously wounded. The ball
could not be extracted, and the Governor carried it in his
thigh to the end of his days.
During his career as a legislator he served on many im-portant
committees, and he always voted as a strict partisan.
He favored the making of roads, the building of causeways,
the draining of bog lands, the foresting of dunes, and the
keeping open of rivers and creeks at their falls for the free
passage of fish. As a Member of the Assembly he bitterly
opposed the founding of the city of Raleigh, and the removal
of the capital from Fayetteville and again from I^ew Bern.
In contemplation of a war with France, or of a second
'Conflict with England, while General Washington was still
President, Colonel Smith was made Brigadier-General of
Militia, 1Y96. When a struggle with France seemed immi-nent,
during the presidency of John Adams in 1797, the
entire militia force of Brunswick County, officers and men,
roused to enthusiasm by a speech General Smith made them,
volunteered to follow his lead in the service of their country.
In 1810, when trouble with England was culminating, he
was again made Brigadier-General of his county forces.
In that same year he was elected Governor of North Caro-lina,
and in his message to the General Assembly, November
20, 1811, he recommended the adoption of a penitentiary
system, and appealed for a reform of the too sanguinary
criminal code of the State. He also advised encouraging
^'domestic manufactures employing those persons who are un-able
or unfit to till the soil," the improving of the militia, and
the establishment of public schools. In recommending the
schools he said: "Too much attention can not be paid to
the all-important subject of education. In despotic govern-ments,
where the supreme power is in the possession of a
tyrant or divided amongst an hereditary aristocracy (gener-ally
corrupt and wicked), the ignorance of the people is a
security to their rulers ; but in a free government, where the
offices and honors of the State are open to all, the superiority
of their political privileges should be infused into every
10
citizen from their earliest infancy, so as to produce an enthu-siastic
attachment to their own country, and ensure a jealous
supiDort of their own constitution, laws, and government, to
the total exclusion of all foreign influence or partiality. A
certain degree of education should be placed within the reach
of every child in the State ; and I am persuaded a plan may
be formed upon economical principles that would extend this
boon to the poor of every neighborhood, at an expense trifling
beyond expectation, when compared with the incalculable
benefits from such a philanthropic and politic system." Ex-cusing
the rhetoric, this might have been written a century
later.
Upon retiring from the gubernatorial office he entered
upon the carrying out of certain engineering plans which he
had advocated as legislator and Governor for the improve-ment
of conditions within the State. He stood for the best
of what has characterized each and every administration
from the time of Governors Vance and Jarvis to the days of
Aycock and Glenn and of Your Excellency. He lived just
one hundred years before his time. He could not long re-main
out of politics, and in 1816 his neighbors returned him
to the State Senate. General Smith was a zealous Mason,
and during his prime was for three years, from 1808 to 1811,
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina.
Up to 1792 there were no homes in the neighborhood of
Fort Johnston, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, and
Mr. Joshua Potts, of Wilmington, who made the first move-ment
toward establishing a town there, has given us an in-teresting
account of the settlement of Smithville in a manu-script
that has come down to us, and published in 1904 by
the University of !N"orth Carolina in James Sprunt His-torical
Monograph ISTo. 4, pp. 86-90. Mr. Potts has told us
how he and certain of his friends in 1790 undertook to lay
off a town there and obtain a charter. Their plan was un-expectedly
opposed in the Legislature by Colonel Smith, and
the charter for the town of "Nashton," as they purposed
11
calling the place, was defeated. A year after the defeat of
the bill at Fayetteville, General Smith's neighbors who fa-vored
the bill determined that he should not be sent to the
Assembly unless he would do his best to have an act passed
for the intended purpose. General Smith accepted the con-ditions,
was elected, and made good his word. The act was
passed at ISTew Bern in 1792. General Smith, when he re-turned
from the Assembly, told his friends that on his mak-ing
a motion and offering the bill for the act, "Mr. Macon
or some other respectable member made an. observation that
many applications had been acted upon for different towns
in the State, but that few, if any of them, had succeeded
;
that the said worthy member said, 'As General Smith has
applied in behalf of this petty town, it should be called
Smithville, as if by way of derision to the applicant, should
the town (like many others) not succeed.'
"
Benjamin Smith married Miss Sarah Rhett Dry, daughter
of Colonel William Dry, a man of ability, excellent education,
and rare accomplishments, and a member of the King's
Council. She was also a direct descendant from Cromwell's
admiral, Robert Blake. Both she and General Smith in-herited
large estates. We learn much of their manner of
life and their generous hospitality from the diary of General
Joseph Gardner Swift, of New York, first graduate of the
United States Military Academy at West Point, who in his
younger days enjoyed intimate association with General
Smith. Swift, a young second lieutenant in the corps of
engineers, "was sent to Wilmington in 1804 to examine the
harbor of Cape Fear, and to report a i^lan of defense there-for,
and also to direct the execution of a contract with
General Benjamin Smith, of Belvidere, to construct a battery
at the site of old Fort Johnston, in Smithville, of a material
called 'tapia.' " He gave to the United States Government
ten acres of land on Bald Head, or Smith's Island, which he
owned, on which to build the lighthouse at the mouth of the
12 .
Cape Fear River. He constructed the causeway from Wil-mington
across Eagles Island.
"As he advanced in years," to use the words of Dr. Battle,
"Governor Smith lost his health by high living and his for-tune
by too generous suretyship. He became irascible and
prone to resent fancied slights. His tongue became veno-mous
to opponents. He once spoke with undeserved abusive-ness
of Judge Alfred Moore, and the insult was avenged by
one of the members of the Assembly from Brunswick, Judge
Moore's son Maurice." General Swift has given us in his
"Memoirs" an account of this duel, which was fought on
June 28, 1805, just over in South Carolina, near to the
ocean side, where then stood the Boundary House, the line
running through the center of the entrance hall and main
passageway. Captain Moore was attended by his cousin.
Major Duncan Moore, while General Smith's second was
General Swift himself. Dr. Andrew Scott attended as sur-geon
for both combatants. At the second fire General Smith
received his antagonist's ball in his side and fell. Dr.
Scott, aided by Dr. Griffin, took the General to Smithville
by water, while General Swift hastened to Belvidere, and
conveyed Mrs. Smith in a chair to Smithfield through a
storm of lightning and rain. The ball lodged near the Gen-eral's
left shoulder-blade, and it (or the bullet fired by Leon-ard
years before) was the means of identifying Smith's
ashes many years later when his remains were removed to
the burial ground of St. James Church, Wilmington.
General Smith's gi'eat burden of debt was due to the
defalcation of Colonel Reed, collector of the port of Wilming-ton,
whose surety he was. It was to discharge this liability
that General Smith had contracted to build the tapia work
at Fort Johnston. General Swift has told us how this tapia
was prepared from equal parts of lime, raw shells and sand,
and water sufficient to form a paste or batter. All the engi-neering
work in which the old hero engaged was undertaken
to discharge debts, and it is sad to relate that in his old age
13
he was arrested by the attorney of the University, who,
Smith alleged, was his personal enemy, and held for a se-curity
debt, "but on learning the fact he was released by the
Trustees with promptness."
Besides the home at Belvidere, Governor Smith at one
time owned Orton, which came down to him from his ances-tor,
Roger Moore, being originally the home of his kinsman,
Maurice Moore, grandson of Sir John Yeamans. Mrs.
Smith's flower garden was such an attractive place that Dr.
Griffin, dying of yellow fever in Wilmington, asked that he
be buried there. The Isabella grape, highly esteemed by
us for its fine flavor, was introduced to N'orth Carolina from
Mrs. Smith's garden where it grew from a cutting, the gift
of a sea captain who had received some kindness at her
hands. General Swift visited his old friend. General Smith,
at Orton in 1818, and found him gi'eatly depressed by his
debts, Mrs. Smith "evincing a well-balanced serenity to cheer
her husband." Swift returned to Wilmington, where he
"found it a fruitless essay to liquidate the large claims of
the General's creditors."
This man, of rare personal charm, of high character, and
of openhearted and openhanded hospitality, became in-volved
in such pecuniary difficulties that he was actually im-prisoned
for debt; and at the time of his death, in 1826,
some of his creditors resorted to the unusual method, though
allowed by the law of that day, of withholding his body from
burial until his friends could meet the demands of the credi-tors.
The deputies set to watch the body were lured away
temporarily to partake of refreshments, and when they re-turned
the coffin and its contents had disappeared. Friends
had taken it out on the river to the old graveyard on the site
of St. Phillip's Church, then a ruin of old Brunswick town,
where in the dead of night they gave the body of their com-rade
Christian burial. A story, probably originating with
the careless watchers, that the coffin had been taken out on
the river and in the darkness committed to its waters by the
14
negroes who were trusted to row the boat, gained some
credence; but what is less probable: that devoted friends
would thus leave his body to slaves, or that they would let
the story pass as a probable means of concealing his last
resting place ?
In 1853 their old friend, General Swift, caused to be
erected over the grave of General and Mrs. Smith in the old
Brunswick cemetery a marble slab on which was inscribed:
"In memory of that Excellent Lady, Sarah Rhett Dry Smith,
who died the 21st of JSTovember, 1821, aged 59 years. Also
of her husband, Benjamin Smith of Belvidere, once Governor
of North Carolina, who died January, 1826, aged 70."
ACCEPTANCE
In a graceful speech, on behalf of the State, Governor
Kitchin thanked the Society for this gift of the portrait of
Governor Smith, and expressed his gratification upon learn-ing
that there had been manifested in North Carolina a cen-tury
ago such interest in public education and other benefi-cent
measures for the upbuilding of the State and the good
of its people. It is a source of sincere regret that Governor
Kitchin's speech of acceptance, having been delivered with-out
manuscript or notes, cannot be reproduced here. As is
always the case with that gifted orator, his remarks were a
source of entertainment and interest to his hearers, and it
would gratify the Society to be able to place them in full
before its members and friends who were not so fortunate
as to be present on that interesting occasion.
1
FEB 8 1912
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS
014 423 491
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#obernor
^Benjamin ^mitf)
ADDRESS BY COLLIER COBB
November 15, 1911
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT
OF
To the State of North Carolina
Hall of the House of Representatives, at Raleigh
November 15, 1911
North Carolina Society of the Sons
of the Revolution
Address by
COLLIER ^ OF THE
North Carolina Society of the Sons of the Revolution
November, 1911—November. 1912
PRESIDENT,
Hon. J. BRYAN GRIMES,
Raleigh.
VICE-PRESIDENT,
DANIEL HARVEY HILL, LL.D.,
West Raleigh.
SECRETARY,
MARSHALL DeLANCEY HAYWOOD,
Raleigh.
REGISTRAR,
WILLIAM ENDS STONE,
Raleigh.
TREASURER,
WILLIAM WATKINS ROBARDS,
Raleigh.
CHAPLAIN,
The Rev. ROBERT BRENT DRANE, D.D.,
Edenton.
BOARD OF MANAGERS:
The Officers, ex officio,
AND
Alexander Boyd Andrews, Jr., Chairman.
Carle Augustus Woodruff. U.S.A. Walter Wellington Watt.
Collier Cobb. James Ozborn Carr.
Charles Earl Johnson. Willis Grandy Peace, U.S.A.
Thomas Maslin. Charles Lee Smith.
PROGRAMME OF PUBLIC EXERCISES
November 15, 1911
Meeting Called to Okdee: By Hon, J. Bryan Grimes,
President of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution.
Peayer : By the Rev. Robert Brent Drane, D.D., of Eden-ton,
Chaplain of the Society.
Intkoduction of the Orator: By President Grimes.
Address : The Career of Governor Benjamin Smith, by
Prof. Collier Cobb, of the University of North Carolina,
a member of the Society.
Acceptance of the Portrait: By His Excellency, Wil-liam
W. Kitchin, Governor of North Carolina.
Benediction : By The Rev. Dr. Drane.
ADDRESS
Addressing Governor Kitchin, Professor Cobb said:
May it Please Your Excellency
:
On behalf of the North Carolina Society of the Sons of
the Kevolution, I present through you to the State of North
Carolina the portrait of Benjamin Smith, patriot, legislator,
soldier, statesman, and philanthropist; builder of highways
and of fortifications ; conservationist and drainer of sw^amps
;
opener of vs^aterways ; believer in education for every child
within the State, and the first benefactor of the University;
Grand Master of Masons ; Governor of North Carolina one
hundred years before his time, and dreamer of dreams which
you, sir, now help to make come true.
LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF BENJAMIN SMITH.
Benjamin Smith's education began more than a hundred
years before he was born, for he came of a race of men who
did things. He was descended from Sir John Yeamans,
from old King Roger Moore, and his grandmother, Lady
Sabina Sraith, was the daughter of Thomas Smith, second
Landgrave of his name in South Carolina. The father of
our present subject was Colonel Thomas Smith, of South
Carolina. So far as is known no relationship existed be-tween
him and his wife, whose name (as just stated) was
also Smith. Thomas Smith, the first Landgrave, had seen
rice cultivated in Madagascar; and one day, in 1696, when a
sea captain, an old friend of his, sailed into Charleston Har-bor
from Madagascar, Thomas Smith got from him a bag of
rice seed. This was carefully sown in a wet place in Smith's
garden in Charleston. It grew, and the two Carolinas were
changed into a land of great rice plantations. His great-grandson,
Benjamin Smith, was later owner of the best rice
plantation in North Carolina, a portion of the original grant
to Landgrave Smith, who tried to establish settlements on the
Cape Fear River in 1690. Also to be counted among his
close kindred were the Bees and Grimkes, of South Carolina,
and the Rhetts, who changed their name from Smith to that
of their grandmother, Catherine Ehett, whose family in
South Carolina had become extinct. Benjamin Smith
thus came of a breed possessing ability, means, and position.
The William Smith who introduced the culture of cotton
into Virginia in 1621 is said to have been of the same stock.
While the public acts and many details of the private life
of Benjamin Smith may be gathered from the records of his
time, both State and N"ational, and from the rather volumi-nous
correspondence of his distinguished contemporaries, the
date of his birth and the manner and place of his burial have
frequently been brought into question. The weight of author-ity
favors January 10, 1756, as his birthday, and Jan-uary
10, 1826, his seventieth birthday, as the date of his
death. Still there are those who contend that he was born
in 1750, and that he died on the 10th of February, 1829.
But a contemporary newspaper, the Raleigh Register, of
February 14, 1826, has a notice of his death as having oc-curred
recently at Smithville.
We know nothing, however, concerning his childhood and
youth, but he must have received careful training, for we
are told that, "While still young, just twenty-one years of
age, he served as aide-de-camp of General Washington in the
dangerous but masterly retreat from Long Island after the
defeat of the American Army in August, 1776. He behaved
with conspicuous gallantry in the brilliant action in which
Moultrie, in 1779, drove the British from Port Royal
Island, and checked for a time the invasion of South Caro-lina.
A Charleston paper says: ^He gave on many occa-sions
such various proofs of activity and distinguished
bravery as to merit the approbation of his impartial coun-try.'
" Yet during the siege of Charleston, in 1780, a blun-der
of Smith's brought about the premature surrender of the
city on the 12th of May. "Mr. Smith sent a letter to his
wife by Mr. Rutlege, who was taking to the Governor a com-munication
that had been confided to him orally, with the
strictest injunction that no written communication be taken
from the garrison. A letter addressed by a friend to his
wife under assurance that it was only a family letter, Mr.
Rutledge unwarily considered it no violation of his instruc-tions.
He was captured soon after he left the town and
printed copies of the letter were next day thrown into the
garrison in unloaded bombshells, and most unaccountably,
through a secret agency, dispersed through all parts of the
town in printed handbills. The letter plainly told that the
garrison must soon surrender, that their provisions were
expended, and Lincoln only prevented from capitulating by
a point of etiquette. From this time hope deserted the gar-rison,
while the reanimated efforts of the enemy showed their
zeal revived." Lincoln surrendered the fort, and Charleston,
with its stores, its advantages, and the army that defended it,
fell into the hands of the British commander. Smith prob-ably
hastened the surrender just a little, but he did not cause
it; for historians are generally agreed that Lincoln should
have fled and saved his army soon after Clinton began en-girdling
the city about the 1st of April, and before the British
fleet a week later ran by Fort Moultrie and entered the
harbor.
In 1Y83 we find Benjamin Smith in the General Assembly
of ISTorth Carolina, representing Brunswick County in the
Senate. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention
of 1788, that declined to accept the Federal Constitution,
and in that body did all in his power to secure its adoption,
since he was an ardent Federalist. He was a member of
the convention that adopted the Constitution in 1789, and
was on the committee that prepared the amendments which
I^orth Carolina proposed to the Constitution of the United
States. He had some support for the Senatorship in 1789,
but Benjamin Hawkins was elected. This Legislature of
1789 chartered the University of ISTorth Carolina, and Smith
8
was named among the most eminent men of the State com-posing
the first board of trustees. At the first meeting of
the board, on the 18th of December, 1789, Colonel Smith
offered to the University warrants for 20,000 acres of land
in Tennessee that he had received as pay for his distinguished
services in the Revolution, and he handed over the warrants
at the second meeting of the board in 1790. He remained a
trustee of the University until 1824, and took great pride in
presiding over the meetings of the board during his term as
Governor of the State.
The warrants Colonel Smith gave were for land located
in Obion County, in the extreme northwest part of Tennes-see.
By the Treaty of Hopewell in 1795 the United States
ceded this territory to the Chickasaw Indians. In 1810 the
most terrific earthquake that has ever visited the interior of
our country turned portions of this region into lakelets, and
a large part of the University's tract is now occupied by
Reelfoot Lake, the scene of the night-rider raid of a few
years ago. It was not until twenty-five years afterward
that a sale was effected, realizing $14,000 for the University.
Smith Hall, built for a library half a century after the gift
of the land warrants and today occupied by the Law School,
the most attractive building on the campus, commemorates
the munificence of Colonel Smith.
In 1791 Smith again became a member of the Assembly,
and except for the three years, 1801, 1802 and 1803, he con-tinued
in the State Senate until his election as Governor in
the fall of 1810, and he was again in the Senate in 1816.
He was Speaker of the Senate from 1795 to 1799. In 1800
he was defeated for the Speakership by Joseph Riddick, and
in the next election he was defeated for the Senatorship by
William Wingate, a Jeffersonian Democrat. In that day
personal conflicts growing out of political differences were
by no means unusual, and there is a tradition of a duel that
Smith fought with Thomas Leonard, a political opponent,
in which the General was seriously wounded. The ball
could not be extracted, and the Governor carried it in his
thigh to the end of his days.
During his career as a legislator he served on many im-portant
committees, and he always voted as a strict partisan.
He favored the making of roads, the building of causeways,
the draining of bog lands, the foresting of dunes, and the
keeping open of rivers and creeks at their falls for the free
passage of fish. As a Member of the Assembly he bitterly
opposed the founding of the city of Raleigh, and the removal
of the capital from Fayetteville and again from I^ew Bern.
In contemplation of a war with France, or of a second
'Conflict with England, while General Washington was still
President, Colonel Smith was made Brigadier-General of
Militia, 1Y96. When a struggle with France seemed immi-nent,
during the presidency of John Adams in 1797, the
entire militia force of Brunswick County, officers and men,
roused to enthusiasm by a speech General Smith made them,
volunteered to follow his lead in the service of their country.
In 1810, when trouble with England was culminating, he
was again made Brigadier-General of his county forces.
In that same year he was elected Governor of North Caro-lina,
and in his message to the General Assembly, November
20, 1811, he recommended the adoption of a penitentiary
system, and appealed for a reform of the too sanguinary
criminal code of the State. He also advised encouraging
^'domestic manufactures employing those persons who are un-able
or unfit to till the soil," the improving of the militia, and
the establishment of public schools. In recommending the
schools he said: "Too much attention can not be paid to
the all-important subject of education. In despotic govern-ments,
where the supreme power is in the possession of a
tyrant or divided amongst an hereditary aristocracy (gener-ally
corrupt and wicked), the ignorance of the people is a
security to their rulers ; but in a free government, where the
offices and honors of the State are open to all, the superiority
of their political privileges should be infused into every
10
citizen from their earliest infancy, so as to produce an enthu-siastic
attachment to their own country, and ensure a jealous
supiDort of their own constitution, laws, and government, to
the total exclusion of all foreign influence or partiality. A
certain degree of education should be placed within the reach
of every child in the State ; and I am persuaded a plan may
be formed upon economical principles that would extend this
boon to the poor of every neighborhood, at an expense trifling
beyond expectation, when compared with the incalculable
benefits from such a philanthropic and politic system." Ex-cusing
the rhetoric, this might have been written a century
later.
Upon retiring from the gubernatorial office he entered
upon the carrying out of certain engineering plans which he
had advocated as legislator and Governor for the improve-ment
of conditions within the State. He stood for the best
of what has characterized each and every administration
from the time of Governors Vance and Jarvis to the days of
Aycock and Glenn and of Your Excellency. He lived just
one hundred years before his time. He could not long re-main
out of politics, and in 1816 his neighbors returned him
to the State Senate. General Smith was a zealous Mason,
and during his prime was for three years, from 1808 to 1811,
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina.
Up to 1792 there were no homes in the neighborhood of
Fort Johnston, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, and
Mr. Joshua Potts, of Wilmington, who made the first move-ment
toward establishing a town there, has given us an in-teresting
account of the settlement of Smithville in a manu-script
that has come down to us, and published in 1904 by
the University of !N"orth Carolina in James Sprunt His-torical
Monograph ISTo. 4, pp. 86-90. Mr. Potts has told us
how he and certain of his friends in 1790 undertook to lay
off a town there and obtain a charter. Their plan was un-expectedly
opposed in the Legislature by Colonel Smith, and
the charter for the town of "Nashton," as they purposed
11
calling the place, was defeated. A year after the defeat of
the bill at Fayetteville, General Smith's neighbors who fa-vored
the bill determined that he should not be sent to the
Assembly unless he would do his best to have an act passed
for the intended purpose. General Smith accepted the con-ditions,
was elected, and made good his word. The act was
passed at ISTew Bern in 1792. General Smith, when he re-turned
from the Assembly, told his friends that on his mak-ing
a motion and offering the bill for the act, "Mr. Macon
or some other respectable member made an. observation that
many applications had been acted upon for different towns
in the State, but that few, if any of them, had succeeded
;
that the said worthy member said, 'As General Smith has
applied in behalf of this petty town, it should be called
Smithville, as if by way of derision to the applicant, should
the town (like many others) not succeed.'
"
Benjamin Smith married Miss Sarah Rhett Dry, daughter
of Colonel William Dry, a man of ability, excellent education,
and rare accomplishments, and a member of the King's
Council. She was also a direct descendant from Cromwell's
admiral, Robert Blake. Both she and General Smith in-herited
large estates. We learn much of their manner of
life and their generous hospitality from the diary of General
Joseph Gardner Swift, of New York, first graduate of the
United States Military Academy at West Point, who in his
younger days enjoyed intimate association with General
Smith. Swift, a young second lieutenant in the corps of
engineers, "was sent to Wilmington in 1804 to examine the
harbor of Cape Fear, and to report a i^lan of defense there-for,
and also to direct the execution of a contract with
General Benjamin Smith, of Belvidere, to construct a battery
at the site of old Fort Johnston, in Smithville, of a material
called 'tapia.' " He gave to the United States Government
ten acres of land on Bald Head, or Smith's Island, which he
owned, on which to build the lighthouse at the mouth of the
12 .
Cape Fear River. He constructed the causeway from Wil-mington
across Eagles Island.
"As he advanced in years," to use the words of Dr. Battle,
"Governor Smith lost his health by high living and his for-tune
by too generous suretyship. He became irascible and
prone to resent fancied slights. His tongue became veno-mous
to opponents. He once spoke with undeserved abusive-ness
of Judge Alfred Moore, and the insult was avenged by
one of the members of the Assembly from Brunswick, Judge
Moore's son Maurice." General Swift has given us in his
"Memoirs" an account of this duel, which was fought on
June 28, 1805, just over in South Carolina, near to the
ocean side, where then stood the Boundary House, the line
running through the center of the entrance hall and main
passageway. Captain Moore was attended by his cousin.
Major Duncan Moore, while General Smith's second was
General Swift himself. Dr. Andrew Scott attended as sur-geon
for both combatants. At the second fire General Smith
received his antagonist's ball in his side and fell. Dr.
Scott, aided by Dr. Griffin, took the General to Smithville
by water, while General Swift hastened to Belvidere, and
conveyed Mrs. Smith in a chair to Smithfield through a
storm of lightning and rain. The ball lodged near the Gen-eral's
left shoulder-blade, and it (or the bullet fired by Leon-ard
years before) was the means of identifying Smith's
ashes many years later when his remains were removed to
the burial ground of St. James Church, Wilmington.
General Smith's gi'eat burden of debt was due to the
defalcation of Colonel Reed, collector of the port of Wilming-ton,
whose surety he was. It was to discharge this liability
that General Smith had contracted to build the tapia work
at Fort Johnston. General Swift has told us how this tapia
was prepared from equal parts of lime, raw shells and sand,
and water sufficient to form a paste or batter. All the engi-neering
work in which the old hero engaged was undertaken
to discharge debts, and it is sad to relate that in his old age
13
he was arrested by the attorney of the University, who,
Smith alleged, was his personal enemy, and held for a se-curity
debt, "but on learning the fact he was released by the
Trustees with promptness."
Besides the home at Belvidere, Governor Smith at one
time owned Orton, which came down to him from his ances-tor,
Roger Moore, being originally the home of his kinsman,
Maurice Moore, grandson of Sir John Yeamans. Mrs.
Smith's flower garden was such an attractive place that Dr.
Griffin, dying of yellow fever in Wilmington, asked that he
be buried there. The Isabella grape, highly esteemed by
us for its fine flavor, was introduced to N'orth Carolina from
Mrs. Smith's garden where it grew from a cutting, the gift
of a sea captain who had received some kindness at her
hands. General Swift visited his old friend. General Smith,
at Orton in 1818, and found him gi'eatly depressed by his
debts, Mrs. Smith "evincing a well-balanced serenity to cheer
her husband." Swift returned to Wilmington, where he
"found it a fruitless essay to liquidate the large claims of
the General's creditors."
This man, of rare personal charm, of high character, and
of openhearted and openhanded hospitality, became in-volved
in such pecuniary difficulties that he was actually im-prisoned
for debt; and at the time of his death, in 1826,
some of his creditors resorted to the unusual method, though
allowed by the law of that day, of withholding his body from
burial until his friends could meet the demands of the credi-tors.
The deputies set to watch the body were lured away
temporarily to partake of refreshments, and when they re-turned
the coffin and its contents had disappeared. Friends
had taken it out on the river to the old graveyard on the site
of St. Phillip's Church, then a ruin of old Brunswick town,
where in the dead of night they gave the body of their com-rade
Christian burial. A story, probably originating with
the careless watchers, that the coffin had been taken out on
the river and in the darkness committed to its waters by the
14
negroes who were trusted to row the boat, gained some
credence; but what is less probable: that devoted friends
would thus leave his body to slaves, or that they would let
the story pass as a probable means of concealing his last
resting place ?
In 1853 their old friend, General Swift, caused to be
erected over the grave of General and Mrs. Smith in the old
Brunswick cemetery a marble slab on which was inscribed:
"In memory of that Excellent Lady, Sarah Rhett Dry Smith,
who died the 21st of JSTovember, 1821, aged 59 years. Also
of her husband, Benjamin Smith of Belvidere, once Governor
of North Carolina, who died January, 1826, aged 70."
ACCEPTANCE
In a graceful speech, on behalf of the State, Governor
Kitchin thanked the Society for this gift of the portrait of
Governor Smith, and expressed his gratification upon learn-ing
that there had been manifested in North Carolina a cen-tury
ago such interest in public education and other benefi-cent
measures for the upbuilding of the State and the good
of its people. It is a source of sincere regret that Governor
Kitchin's speech of acceptance, having been delivered with-out
manuscript or notes, cannot be reproduced here. As is
always the case with that gifted orator, his remarks were a
source of entertainment and interest to his hearers, and it
would gratify the Society to be able to place them in full
before its members and friends who were not so fortunate
as to be present on that interesting occasion.
1
FEB 8 1912
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS
014 423 491
,;